Healthcare Reform Creates More Slots in the C-Suite

"They are going to be centered around things like patient satisfaction and HCAHPS scores," he says. "For example, these large academic medical centers are grappling with the fact that nobody wants to drive 45 minutes into town, spend 20 minutes parking, go through the maze of hallways and floors when you can be seen in a tertiary or regional type system. They are competing now for that experience."

In addition, these chief experience officers are dealing with healthcare metrics in the age of transparency with the government, the public, and competitors.

"You have this information so readily accessible and so open—at least it will be—as far as what these patients are encountering," Singleton says. "I know we are only at 1% but that is soon going to rise to 3% on readmissions. These are real dollars now. These are potentially tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars that these health systems will face. You not only need an executive in place to manage the process, you also need someone with provider experience, management experience, and infrastructure experience. All of those things."

Physicians First
Right now qualified chief experience officers are at a premium, and Singleton says he doesn't see that changing anytime soon. So, where are these new chief experience officers coming from?

"There is a renaissance of physician leadership we have seen over the last two or three years," Singleton says. "It used to be a small segment of the market with providers that usually came up through academia. They were usually deans and vice chairs and they would go on to manage health systems in some cases. The other cases would be physicians who worked their way up."

sandra young (11/2/2013 at 4:21 PM)
The article was physician centered. Why can't some of these slots in the C-site be filled by nurses with MBAs and MHAs? Nurses are at the forefront of patient care and often are the individuals who also impact health care delivery. They work and interact in the clinics and health care settings of specialized populations. They are the change agents. Who better than nurses can develop strategies that will impact how health care is delivered. Just as we can put on our CEO caps...so can we wear the hat of a Chief Experience Officer.